In Mexico, a New Approach to Stanching Drug Violence-Latin America Program in the News

Eric L. Olson, a senior associate at the Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, praised the new program’s call for better coordination. Under the leadership of Mr. Calderón, he said, agencies were too independent of one another.

“There was not good coordination with the Secretaría de Gobernación, and there was not good coordination with the military,” Mr. Olson said, referring to Mexico’s internal affairs agency, also known as Segob. The risk now, he added, is the potential to recreate the same bureaucracy. “It could also mean you have a ministry like Segob that’s so powerful that it’s not very accountable or transparent,” he said.

But the emphasis on coordination is positive, he added, and the investment in social programs has contributed to improvements.